Activities Among Negroes
The great event of the week was the address delivered Wednesday evening by Congressman L. C. Dyer in the Municipal Auditorium Theater of Oakland. He was presented by the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The affair was well planned and had been looked forward to with great interest, as the association is in the midst of an annual membership drive.
The musical program was under the direction of Professor Elmer Keeton with an augmented choir of selected voices. They sang negro spirituals without instrumental accompaniment. On the rostrum were Father David R. Wallace of St. Augustin Episcopal church, Rev. Pryor of First A. M. E. church, Rev. Shaw of Cooper A. M. E., Zion church, Mr. Sweeney, a furniture dealer of Berkeley; Mr. Rodgers, a contractor of Richmond; Congressman Albert Carter and the president of the organization, Attorney John Drake. The latter in a short address introduced commissioner Albert Carter, recently elected to represent this, district in Congress, who introduced the speaker of the evening.
Carter was greeted with applause that lasted fully three minutes. In his introductory remarks he said: "I consider it a privilege and an honor to introduce Congressman L. C. Dyer." He referred to Congressman Dyer as a distinguished citizen and spoke briefly on the service he had rendered to the country. He said that he believed in law enforcement and the dignity of the law; all laws should be upheld; that there was no place or time when lawlessness was justified by any group of people, and in regard to the Dyer bill or any other bill which had for its object the enforcement of the laws of the country he would give his vote for the measure. These remarks were applauded by the hundreds of colored people assembled.
Congressman Dyer in his address paid glowing tribute to the state, its colored citizens and to United States Senator Shortridge. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee of Congress, Senator Shortridge succeeded in having the Dyer antilynching bill twice favorably reported out of the committee. It was, however, never voted upon in the Senate, having been talked to death.
Congressman Dyer said that through the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People authentic statistics had been procured in which it had been proven that 4000 colored people had been lynched who were innocent of offenses. These figures showed that those who believed that lynching was a necessary evil were mistaken. He also spoke of the peonage system and the inequality of education for the colored people in Dixie. He further said: "Even with all the disadvantages some of them have come North and are finding employment, not as common laborers, but as skilled mechanics." In every instance, he gave figures and the names of cities where these negro workmen are giving satisfactory services. It was a splendid address, delivered to a large and appreciative and closely attentive audience of several hundred persons, representing the best colored families, of the Eastbay cities and as far as Vallejo and San Jose. Rabbi Coffee delivered a short but interesting address. The president, Attorney Drake, called on Mrs. DeHart, the secretary, to read the names of new members who had a taken out $25 and $5 memberships.. The meeting closed with all feeling that it had been an evening well spent.
In a recent issue of the Christian Science Monitor the following account was given concerning Dr. J. t Kweyery, who had arrived at Cape Town, West Africa after having spent several weeks in a tour of East Africa on behalf of the Phelps-Stokes Commission. He was interviewed in regard to the policy of the new British government toward the natives of South Africa. In his interview he is quoted as saying: "The great need of the natives of today is for self-expression, and if thus provided I do not think there need be any fear of native Bolshevism." Continuing, he said: "All philosophy has gone to teach me that if Michael Angelo had not been able to express himself by hammering a stone, he might have done it by hammering other people.
"My people are going to have an education, anyhow, and my idea is that the wise men and women will see to it that they get education of the right kind, not the Bolshevist kind. All my experience, I must say, has gone to show that the more thoroughly a man is educated the steadier he becomes and this, I am sure, will be the case in Africa."
Another highly interesting article on a native African negro appears in the musical department of the New York Age from the pen of Luelan White. The article is headed "London Journal Comments on Ballanta Taylor's Work." White then states that "Two interesting chronicles relating to Ballanta Taylor, a native of Freetown Sierra Leone, West Africa, who recently left New York for Sierra Leone by way of London after studying two years at the Damrosch Institute of Musical Art, have recently come to me from London."
The Coaster's London Log, a department printed in West Africa, had the following to say:
"Mr. Taylor is going back to Sierra Leone to make a scientific study of African music, and when this is accomplished he proposes to return to America for a time by way of the Continent, and finally to establish himself in the interest of his art in West Africa. The scientific research tour is to last about a year, and in that time Mr. Taylor proposes to go to the interior of Sierra Leone to visit the Gambia Gold Coast, Senegal and Nigeria, territory most of which he had already covered when working in the government service.
"Mr. Taylor said that he would search for knowledge of the original music of Africa, and the instruments, a variety of which abounds in the four West Africa colonies, would claim a large amount of his attention. He would study the possible uses to which these instruments could be put in order to express the music of Africa and develop it. In connection with the instruments, Mr. Taylor says: "Many of the natural varieties on the coast play African music as it should be played, that is, with seventeen notes."
